


I Don't Have the Strength

by the_pen_is_mightier



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Aziraphale and Crowley knew each other as angels, Aziraphale's Flaming Sword, Canon Compliant, Crowley asks Aziraphale to go off with him, Crowley was Raphael before he fell, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Fall, graphic depictions of falling, lots and lots of angst, this one gets rough, though it casts the beginning scene in a new light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 22:16:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21144098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_pen_is_mightier/pseuds/the_pen_is_mightier
Summary: Lucifer is coming. The First War is brewing. And Raphael has a confession to make to Aziraphale, as well as a plea.





	I Don't Have the Strength

The universe, hot and cracked with youth like the upturned earth after a volcano, was trembling. Still in shock at its own existence, when by all rights it should be wondering at, delighting in, its newspoken stars and planets and expanses, instead its heart quivered with a deep-stricken wrongness. 

In a golden city, angels lounged under beautiful trees and tossed their halos back and forth to each other. They laughed, their laughter like music ringing through the heavens. Their faces were joyous, one and all. No one was fooled. 

Surrounding the city, patches of stinking soot and white-hot flame drew nearer. 

By the edge of the city, two angels with gleaming wings sat huddled under a low-sagging branch. The tree it hung from way turning gray, its bark peeling like sunburned skin, its lush green turning sickly. 

“He’s coming,” said Raphael. 

Raphael’s mind was in turmoil. This never should have happened. All of it, all of it had been a mistake. The day they’d come for him had been a peak of frustration, but he ought to have _known_ they didn’t simply want to talk with the Almighty, he ought to have known they wanted power for themselves, he ought to have known they didn’t care about real answers like he did. Lucifer, the arrogant bastard - how had he managed to take Raphael in? 

“We’ll fight,” said Aziraphale. He was always confident about those sorts of things. “We’ll destroy him. I have my holy weapon.” 

Yes, the flaming sword - Raphael had seen God give that gift to him. Raphael had seen nearly everything of Aziraphale’s life, just as Aziraphale had seen his. They had been born at the same moment, from the same burst of light. But Aziraphale had been made for war, and Raphael for starmaking. 

Raphael swallowed. He wasn’t sure he’d ever see the stars again, after today. 

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said. 

Aziraphale turned his eyes toward him. His eyes were the color of God’s newmade firmament, that clear, crystal blue. They were meant to be warrior’s eyes, not artist’s, and yet Raphael had never seen art like the kind captured within them. They seemed to enfold the rising and falling of time itself, the twisting, arresting nature of it here at the beginning of the universe, when days stretched like nebulae into billions of years, when in the twenty-four hours between the creation of light and the creation of the sky the two of them had lived a hundred lifetimes together. Raphael had made the stars to hang in that sky, but he had never been good with words. He didn’t know how to explain any of that to Aziraphale.

He didn’t know how to tell him _I love you_, didn’t know how to explain that it was different than the love of God, the love all angels had. He didn’t know how to say _my universe has shifted to revolve around you._ He didn’t know how to say _I’m terrified at the thought that I might lose you. Losing you, Aziraphale, would destroy me._

“It’s about - well, it’s about Lucifer.”

“What about him?” A storm crossed Aziraphale’s brow. His fist clenched, and Raphael saw the outlines of his flaming sword shimmer into shape around his fingers. With a thought Aziraphale could summon his weapon.

“Put that away,” said Raphael, feeling sick. “You don’t need that.” 

Raphael had been there when the sword was given, but he’d also been there _before_, with Aziraphale before the firmament, when all there had been in the universe was light. He’d seen Aziraphale before he’d been given his holy weapon, when he was only delighted by the universe and creation, when he only wanted to watch Raphael spin stars like silk, when he spent hours and hours nestled within Raphael’s wings, letting his joy light Raphael’s heart. 

Now he spent hours and hours practicing. Training. These days Raphael felt farther from him than before. 

“Look,” said Raphael. “Lucifer will be here any minute.” 

The flaming sword appeared fully in Aziraphale’s hand.

“Aziraphale, will you listen? For a second don’t think about fighting. I need you to understand.” 

“If he’ll be here any minute, I need to help protect the city,” said Aziraphale, his jaw set. He turned back to Raphael and his face softened. “Protect you. You’re no warrior. 

“But -”

“I won’t let Lucifer hurt you.”

It was too late for that. Oh, it was far, far too late. 

“It’s not just him coming,” Raphael said. “You know that, right?” 

Aziraphale blinked. “What do you mean? The Almighty hasn’t told us about any other angels falling.”

Of course the Almighty wasn’t talking about it. “But, well - you hear word, don’t you? You hear the other angels talking.” Raphael looked at Aziraphale’s blank face. “Surely you’ve heard the rumors?”

“I don’t know anything about rumors.”

“The rumor is -” Raphael felt desperate. This would be more difficult than he thought. He’d imagined it infinitely difficult, he’d imagined it a task fit for better angels, a task he would never be up for - but Aziraphale didn’t even know? He would have to lay out the whole sordid story for him, from the beginning? 

“He convinced other angels to come with him,” said Raphael. “He built himself up a vowed army before he was cast out. When he attacks, he’ll draw all those sworn allies in with his own power - and they’ll all fall, same as him. And they'll be forced to fight against Heaven.” 

“Other angels?” Aziraphale’s jaw dropped. “Who else would dare -”

“He’s very persuasive, Aziraphale.” Raphael ran fingers through his hair. “He promised the angels freedom. He promised them new abilities. He promised them a better life, and a higher calling, and -” _answers_, he thought miserably. Not that he’d ever delivered. Not that Raphael had ever really thought he would. But he’d been desperate, hadn’t he? He’d been such a fool. 

“It’s all right, Raphael,” said Aziraphale. He was practically on his feet now, brandishing his sword, his face troubled, his hands practically trembling with the urge to use it. It made Raphael’s blood run thin, sometimes, watching how natural that deadly thing looked in his angel’s hands. Aziraphale became a flame when he held it. “I can still protect us. If the fallen angels attack us from the inside, I’ll be ready. It’s good you told me. I must have been negligent, to miss such an important -”

He still wasn’t listening. He didn’t even suspect what Raphael needed to confess to him. Aziraphale’s mind was so clear and so wide and so simple, and his trust in Raphael was so deep - it hurt Raphael to think it. It hurt Raphael to the bone. 

“Aziraphale,” he said, his voice weak.

Aziraphale turned to look at him once more, and once more his face softened. Those eyes blue as time melted into love. “Yes, dear?” 

That term of endearment made Raphael want to crack in two. It brought him back to so many joyful times among the stars. Oh, why couldn’t the first day have lasted forever? Why couldn’t the light have continued, simple and true? Why couldn’t light be enough? 

Suddenly Raphael felt he had no strength left. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t stain Heaven’s air with the ugliness of his confession. Not yet. He opened his arms instead, spreading his wings. “Come here.” 

Aziraphale dropped his warlike stance, a smile freeing his face from its inset strength. He uncurled his fingers from his flaming sword, letting it vanish back into the air, and turned to sit himself down in Raphael’s arms, between Raphael’s knees, and hugged to his chest. Raphael wrapped his arms tenderly around Aziraphale and breathed him in. This was paradise. This ought to have been enough for him.

Why couldn’t Aziraphale have been enough for him? 

“I love you,” said Raphael, but it didn’t mean enough. It didn’t mean the feeling in his soul when Aziraphale was close to him. Still, it was as close as he could manage. He let his lips on Aziraphale’s cheek say the rest. 

“I love you, too,” Aziraphale sighed, easy, and Raphael wondered if he meant it more, as well. 

They were so warm together. Raphael let his eyes slide shut. He let himself relish this moment. A second longer. A second longer. Just him and Aziraphale, nothing else, no impending war, no fear, no sword. A second more, a second more, a second -

The ground trembled beneath him. 

Aziraphale leapt to his feet, flinging himself out of Raphael’s arms, and Raphael was jolted out of his happy delusion. He found his arms thrown back to catch him, prevent him from falling onto his back, and they pressed against the grass as Aziraphale’s warrior countenance fell back over his shoulders.

“He’s coming,” said Aziraphale. 

Yes. Raphael could feel it. Though not in the way that Aziraphale could - Raphael felt it like a pull, like something was drawing him out, toward the fringe of the golden city. A burning, branding pull. 

“You should get somewhere safe,” said Aziraphale. 

Nowhere was safe for him now. Raphael squeezed his eyes shut and pushed himself to his feet. “Aziraphale, there’s still something I need to tell you.” 

“It can wait,” said Aziraphale, impatient. His eyes were clouding with that ferocity again, the look that wasn’t like him. 

“No,” said Raphael. His voice shook; it was weak, a hair away from breaking. He turned his eyes out to the black-smoke line he saw in the distance. “No, it can’t wait.” 

“He’s almost here!” 

“That’s why it can’t.” 

Aziraphale’s face was still uncomprehending. Raphael gritted his teeth. 

“Aziraphale, when he comes for the other angels -“ 

“We’ll fight them.” Aziraphale’s expression had darkened to be almost unrecognizable. “I don’t care. I’ll defend us. I’ll defend Her. That’s what I was made to do, and if I have to sink my sword into the heart of a fellow angel -”

“Stop!” Raphael held up his hands. He wanted to be sick. “Stop, just listen!”

“They deserve whatever comes to them! Turning away from God, forsaking Her authority, they’ve damned themselves and I -”

“I’m one of them!” 

Aziraphale froze. His mouth stayed open, arrested mid-speech. His eyes suddenly bulged. 

“He was persuasive, Aziraphale,” said Raphael, and his hands were extended, and his voice was a broken plea. “I was an idiot. I’m so sorry.” 

Aziraphale only stared. Slowly, slowly, his hand came up, and a trembling finger pointed at Raphael’s chest. 

“You…” he whispered. 

“Aziraphale, please -” 

“You _joined_ him?” Aziraphale’s look was one of horror now. As if his world was crumbling down around him. The ground was trembling again, the black smoke coming nearer. 

“I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted more than God was giving,” he said.

“How could you possibly want more? She _created_ us, Raphael! She created this city for us!”

“I know that.” 

“She made light and Heaven and warmth and music -"

“I _know_ that -"

“She’s done everything for us, everything, and you could even think to be unsatisfied? Ungrateful? What could you want that -“

“I was stupid, I _said_ I was stupid!” 

A cold wind began to blow over them. It whipped at Raphael’s flame-red hair; it stirred Aziraphale’s snow-white curls. Aziraphale pulled back when Raphael tried to draw closer. 

“I don’t believe this,” Aziraphale whispered. “You. _You_ betraying us. You helping tear this city down. After everything we’ve been through together.” 

“Aziraphale.” Raphael spread his arms wider, trying to show his innocence. “I don’t want to destroy the city. Surely you know that. If I wanted to, I wouldn’t have told you the truth, would I?” 

Aziraphale eyed him warily. 

“Oh, for _Heaven’s_ sake,” he cried. “You can’t think I’ve been trying to trap you?” 

“How am I supposed to know what to believe?” He was actively backing away now, closing off. The firm set to his jaw had returned. His sword seemed to linger on the edge of existence, waiting, waiting to be called. 

“I told you because I don’t want this to happen.” Raphael kept still. He didn’t want to give Aziraphale another reason to run from him. “We still have a little time before this all goes wrong. We could get out of here. Lucifer’s not going to destroy the whole universe. We could go off to some far-away star system and wait out this stupid war. Wouldn’t that be better than fighting?”

Aziraphale gaped at him. “Run _away?”_

“Why not?” Raphael wanted so desperately to take those soft hands in his. “I love you, Aziraphale.” 

“You’re one of them.”

“I’m not! I’m not like Lucifer!”

“You’re greedy. You wanted more.” The words were halting, uncertain - but still clear. Aziraphale didn’t try to take them back once they’d been spoken.

“I just wanted to ask questions. That’s all. I wouldn’t ever hurt you, Aziraphale.” 

“How can I trust you?”

That cut. Raphael dropped his supplicant stance, taking a faltering step backward. Aziraphale had transformed completely. There was nothing of the light, the simple joy in him now. There was everything of the soldier.

“How can you _trust_ me?” The words came out as a hoarse whisper.

Finally, Aziraphale softened slightly. “Raphael, I -”

“I’m asking you to.” Tears burned in his eyes. “I’m asking you to go away with me where we’ll be safe. I don’t understand how you could think I’d hurt you.” 

Slowly, incrementally, Aziraphale breathed out, and his anger diminished. Slowly a piece of his old self returned. “I know you wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Raphael. I could never really believe that of you.” 

Raphael took a hesitant step forward. “So? Can we get out of here?”

Gritty thunder boomed from the direction of the smoke, and Aziraphale’s head snapped up.

“Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale looked back at Raphael, then at the encroaching storm - the thing he was created to combat, his hereditary enemy. He looked lost. He still clutched his flaming sword in both hands.

“Aziraphale,” Raphael pleaded. “Put down the sword.” 

The thunder again. The sky was blackening. Aziraphale shook, but his grip didn’t loosen, he didn’t move toward Raphael. He looked as if he had no idea what he was going to do. The wind whipped at his robes, at his wings, and Raphael thought, for the first time in their existence, that he seemed fragile in the face of it. 

“Raphael,” he said, “I can’t abandon my duty.” 

A shout echoed from the city, and angels, halos flashing now, wings gleaming white, began running from the buildings and trees. Toward the black smoke now billowing nearer and nearer. Toward the figure Raphael could just barely see - riding that tide of darkness on black, rippling feathers. His new master. 

Aziraphale looked back. The angels were falling into neat rows. Aziraphale stepped back again, this time toward them, as if to join in. 

“Don’t,” Raphael pleaded. “You don’t have to.” 

“What else would I do?” Aziraphale’s eyes were wide with terror, but he took another step toward the amassing army. 

“We can leave this place. There’s still time. Please.” 

Then came the loudest crack of thunder yet, directly over their heads, and Raphael found himself flung to the ground, pressure in his chest, on his wings, pushing him down, pulling him apart, seeming to tear at the very essence of his being. He gasped for air - _is this what it is? Am I falling?_ But his wings were still white, it hadn’t happened yet - and Aziraphale dropped to one knee, as though instinctually, hands reaching to support his shoulders.

“What’s happening?” he demanded. 

“It’s - him -” A bright stripe of agony ripped through his chest, coiling at his back, between his shoulder blades. _No, no, no -_

“Aziraphale!”

Raphael looked up. Someone with huge, arching, white-and-violet wings was waving Aziraphale over to his group of angels. Gabriel.

Aziraphale looked back down at the sword in his hands.

“Aziraphale.” Raphael gripped Aziraphale’s wrist. It was a useless gesture - Aziraphale was so much stronger than him, he could snap Raphael’s fingers with a simple shake of his hand, he could snap Raphael in half almost as easily. He was God’s weapon. It was only the tears that streamed from his eyes - tears half of pain and half of fear - that might convince Aziraphale now.

“I only asked questions,” he whimpered, then convulsed as another burst of pain rocked him. “I - I only wanted - I didn’t mean this. I’m not with Lucifer. Please, Aziraphale, you have to believe me.” His words were half sobs now. “Please, we have to leave. I don’t want to fight in this war. I don’t want to be his soldier. I don’t - please, _please_ -” he could barely speak past his tears - “I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t make me. Aziraphale.” 

Aziraphale’s eyes, when Raphael managed to meet them, swam with thin tears of their own. Raphael had never seen Aziraphale cry before.

“Put down your sword,” he begged. 

Raphael had always considered himself an optimist. He didn’t have the serene, doubt-free faith in God he was supposed to have, but he’d never wavered in his faith in _good_. He’d always believed, from the invention of light and of himself, that the universe was spiraling toward a happy ending. That love led to connection, that yearning led to fulfillment, that thirst led to drink and tears to healing. He’d always held onto a hope deep within him, like a star planted in his heart, and it was inextricably linked to the other thing embedded there. To Aziraphale. 

When Aziraphale, tears brimming on his lashes, almost falling, _almost_, and then blinked back, rose and put both hands back on his sword, that star shriveled within him.

“No,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said, tremulously. “I’m so sorry…”

Raphael screamed. The pain tore through every part of him at once, but it concentrated around his wings, shooting up through the bones and feathers and sensitive skin like tearing flames, spreading blackness through them as inky nothingness spread in his veins. Aziraphale scrambled backward, toward the hordes of angels, leaving Raphael to continue through the terror of his transformation.

Interspersed throughout the hordes of angels, others were screaming, other wings were transforming to black. Other creatures were breaking, cracking, transforming into twisted, deformed creatures. The light in Raphael’s heart was being leached out of him as he Fell, but it was nothing, nothing compared to the hollow hopelessness of Aziraphale’s absence.

“Aziraphale,” he said, but his angel wasn’t there.

When he rose, at last, his eyes the color of diseased skin, when he joined the ranks of the wretched forces at Lucifer’s back, shooting jagged flame at the gleaming cities of Heaven, Aziraphale was standing upright and strong beside Gabriel and the others.

His eyes were dry, Raphael could see. And that was the last thing he knew. 

___

An eternity of six days later - six days that lasted another billion years, a billion years of dragging himself back together, bundling his torn feathers into the shape of a snake, then, painstakingly, of a man - Crawly the demon sat on a wall.

He couldn’t imagine why he’d gone up to Aziraphale to talk. He didn’t know if he held some sort of desperate hope that his angel would remember him, despite the sweeping loss of memory that had occurred through every angel that had stayed in Heaven, or if perhaps he just craved more pain now that the burning of his Fall had at last died down to manageable proportions. Maybe he couldn’t help stoking the flames of his shattered optimism, just to feel it sharp instead of dull, for a moment. 

“That went down like a lead balloon,” he said. 

Aziraphale was polite, but uncomfortable. There was nothing of the ease he’d once shown in the golden city or among the stars. There was nothing of the easy love, whether or not it had ever been the kind of love Raphael had felt. There was nothing left of what they’d had.

That day, Aziraphale had chosen Heaven over him. There was nothing more to think about. There was no chance of being anything but his enemy, now. 

He looked over Aziraphale. Oh, but he couldn’t stop himself from missing him. He never would. He was certain that as long as he lived, as long as his ruined soul languished in the depths of the bottomless pit, he would never, ever stop missing the Aziraphale he’d lost.

Aziraphale’s hands were clasped over his stomach. It was a gesture Crawly was intimately familiar with, a gesture that made his heart ache. 

Crawly frowned. 

_\- Wait -_

Something stabbed up from his chest. Something unwelcome, something dangerous. Something warm.

“Didn’t you have a flaming sword?” he asked sharply, cutting Aziraphale off from whatever he’d been saying. 

Aziraphale’s face turned away, uncomfortable. Crawly pressed - _you did, it was flaming like anything!_ \- but he could hardly hear himself, his heart was stirring in his desecrated chest, something was happening, something he could hardly describe, something he hardly dared think about -

“I gave it _away!”_

Damn and blast the whole universe, Crawly’s heart was beating, for the first time in a million eternities. It was ready to leap from his chest. His eyes were wide, and he was _breathing_, damn it all, and all the light and all the love and all the hope of that first day in the universe was bursting through his veins again. 

_Aziraphale_, he wanted to say, _Aziraphale_ said his mind, _you’re you. I can see you. I haven’t lost you - you’re still buried in there somewhere, the angel I fell in love with. Heaven hasn’t crushed you completely._

He wanted to pull Aziraphale gently into his arms, as he had so long ago - _only six days_ \- but he held back. Aziraphale didn’t recognize him.

But Aziraphale had given away his sword. 

He’d relinquished it.

He’d _put it down._

And in an instant, Crawly found himself willing to go on.

**Author's Note:**

> Like my content? Follow me on tumblr @[whatawriterwields](https://whatawriterwields.tumblr.com)!


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